Steel Ingot

Steel Ingots are smelted from Iron Ore and Coal in Foundries. They are used to produce Steel Pipes and Steel Beams.

Obtaining

Recipe	Ingredients	Produced in	Products	Unlocked by
Steel Ingot	3 × Iron Ore45 / min 3 × Coal45 / min	Foundry 4 sec Craft Bench × 6	3 × Steel Ingot45 / min	Tier 3 - Basic Steel Production
Coke Steel Ingot Alternate	15 × Iron Ore75 / min 15 × Petroleum Coke75 / min	Foundry 12 sec	20 × Steel Ingot100 / min	Tier 5 - Oil Processing
Compacted Steel Ingot Alternate	2 × Iron Ore5 / min 1 × Compacted Coal2.5 / min	Foundry 24 sec	4 × Steel Ingot10 / min	Tier 3 - Basic Steel Production OR MAM Sulfur Research - Compacted Coal
Solid Steel Ingot Alternate	2 × Iron Ingot40 / min 2 × Coal40 / min	Foundry 3 sec	3 × Steel Ingot60 / min	Tier 3 - Basic Steel Production

Recipe	Ingredients	Produced in	Products	Unlocked by
Steel Beam	4 × Steel Ingot60 / min	Constructor 4 sec Craft Bench × 2	1 × Steel Beam15 / min	Tier 3 - Basic Steel Production
Steel Pipe	3 × Steel Ingot30 / min	Constructor 6 sec Craft Bench × 3	2 × Steel Pipe20 / min	Tier 3 - Basic Steel Production
Molded Beam Alternate	24 × Steel Ingot120 / min 16 × Concrete80 / min	Foundry 12 sec	9 × Steel Beam45 / min	Tier 3 - Basic Steel Production
Molded Steel Pipe Alternate	5 × Steel Ingot50 / min 3 × Concrete30 / min	Foundry 6 sec	5 × Steel Pipe50 / min	Tier 3 - Basic Steel Production
Steel Canister Alternate	4 × Steel Ingot40 / min	Constructor 6 sec	4 × Empty Canister40 / min	Tier 5 - Fluid Packaging
Steel Cast Plate Alternate	1 × Iron Ingot15 / min 1 × Steel Ingot15 / min	Foundry 4 sec	3 × Iron Plate45 / min	Tier 3 - Basic Steel Production
Steel Rod Alternate	1 × Steel Ingot12 / min	Constructor 5 sec	4 × Iron Rod48 / min	Tier 3 - Basic Steel Production

Steel Ingot can be sunk into the

AWESOME Sink to yield 8 points.

Solid Steel is generally held to be the most efficient recipe, due to conserving Coal which is the rarer component and having a 2:3 ratio of Iron Ore input to Steel Ingot output. In addition, it is able to benefit from alt recipes for Iron Ingots which further improve Iron efficiency.
While Coke Steel has a superior Weighted Point and does not use Coal at all, it requires fabrication of Petroleum Coke and additional transport of materials, since Oil is seldom located particularly close to Iron Ore.
Compacted Steel can be useful in the mid-game when Sulfur-hungry processes such as nuclear power and waste processing have not yet unlocked. While it offers the best reduction in Coal use short of Coke Steel, it suffers from a low per-machine output and correspondingly high power demand.
Steel is better than Iron for most purposes (using alternate recipes), but cannot be made into Wire.

A bootstrap Steel Ingot production setup with three Coal and three Iron Ore input belts.
Schematic of above steel production.
A mid-game steel production setup.
The calculator showing the above setup.

Patch 1.0:
- Compacted Steel Ingot
  - Changed recipe craft time from 16 to 24 seconds
  - Changed Iron Ore cost from 6 to 2
  - Changed Compacted Coal cost from 3 to 1
  - Changed Steel Ingot product from 10 to 4
Patch 0.3: Increased the amount of product from 2 to 3, buffing it by 50%. A new alternate recipe is added.